


The Situation

by teacupsandcyanide



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Fake Out Make Out, M/M, Sort Of, ace spectrum Dirk, but also a sex scene, enclosed space, my gf yelling at me to use the right tags in order to reach a wider audience, the audible dot com version anyhow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-24
Packaged: 2019-11-26 05:30:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18176462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacupsandcyanide/pseuds/teacupsandcyanide
Summary: Todd raises his eyebrows at him. “You gotta admit. We would get into this … situation.”“What, the situation where we flee from the weekly hired goons into a badly aging knock-off of the Ritz, get shut in an empty room with no escape, and find ourselves compelled to make loud, gratuitous sex noises in order to put the aforementioned lackeys off the scent?”





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Slight warning for a spat of "casual" homophobia from an antagonist.

“Shit! Shit-shit-shit-shit-shit - eek!”

“Dirk!”

Todd grabs him by his shirtfront, and Dirk is saved from the undoubtedly gruesome death he would have suffered had he successfully pitched headfirst over the steel banister into the concrete-y depths of the stairwell below. It’s hard to keep one’s balance while fleeing for one’s life up an inconveniently steep flight of stairs in what he is becoming increasingly convinced is a very dodgy hotel. It’s times like these that Dirk is extremely glad he has Todd, with his quick reflexes and shirtfront-grasping abilities and endearing tendency to shout Dirk’s name at the slightest hint of danger.

There isn’t exactly time to communicate all of these run-on sentences to Todd though. They are, as aforementioned, running for their lives. Dirk settles for giving him a grateful nod, clinging to Todd’s forearms as he regains his balance. Todd just looks back at him in that wild-eyed, concerned way he has, panting heavily.

A door bangs open from a few floors below them.

“… The fuck did they go?” The concrete helpfully amplifies the words and carries them up to Dirk clearly, along with the ominous click of a gun.

“Dude, I saw them go through here, I swear,” grunts the second pursuer. There’s another heavy gun click.

Todd’s hands have fisted in Dirk’s shirt now. They’re both frozen, unsure whether to stay silent or run like the absolute fucking Dickens.

“D’you recognise them?”

“Nah. They’ve got no business hanging around the site. Carl said they have fake IDs too.”

The second man chuckles grimly. “I saw. God, Svlad Cjelli? That’s the stupidest fucking fake name I’ve ever seen.”

Dirk resists the urge to snort.

Todd is craning his neck over Dirk’s shoulder - he’s trying to see up the stairwell, perhaps trying to judge the distance to the next door. A shout from below tells them that this move itself was a miscalculation.

“There!”

This time it’s Dirk’s turn to pull Todd out of the way of imminent agonising death; he does so a split second before the sound of a gun firing. A bullet ricochets off the banister and embeds itself in the concrete wall.

“Ah, goddammit!” curses the shooter.

Dirk and Todd are already sprinting up the next flight of stairs, but the lackeys are scrambling up after them. Todd pulls at the first door they come to, finds it locked and swears. They rush to the next level, throw themselves at the next door; the handle gives and they wrench it open and run into the corridor beyond as more shots fire behind them.

After the echoing of skidding footsteps and gunshots, the carpeted hall is almost comically quiet. They turn a corner at full pelt, passing a handful of doors, identical but for their unique patterns of ambiguous staining and the occasional knife hole. Dirk estimates that is probably the kind of place where gunfire in the stairwell will go disregarded.

“Dirk,” Todd pants as they sprint around another corner, “you can open a door.”

“What?” Dirks thinks for a brief, bewildered moment that Todd is making some sort of philosophical statement about Dirk’s spiritual-emotional impact on his life. Then he catches on and is annoyed on principle. “No, no – that’s not how it – you’re the hotel-thingy-man, you open a door!”

“I _was_ a _bellboy_ , I’m not anymore – I don’t have keys to this place!”

Dirk knows that. “I know that!” he snaps.

Todd is looking increasingly red in the face. “Dirk, just try a door!”

The door to the stairwell crashes open.

“Dirk!”

“Fine!” Dirk flings himself in the most sarcastic fashion possible at the nearest door, number 42. Naturally, it gives way beneath his weight. “Oh, for –”

Todd shoves him into the dark room beyond and slams the door shut behind them loud enough to make Dirk wince.

“Why would you slam it?” he hisses.

Todd locks the door and shoots him a dirty look, “We were well ahead of them, they’re not gonna hear –”

“… That?” A voice sounds down the hall outside, coming closer at the speed of a run. “Definitely from somewhere around here.”

Dirk returns Todd’s dirty look, with interest.

Todd glares at him reproachfully. “At least the door’s locked, okay?”

A bang a few doors down makes them both jump.

“Open up!” shouts one of lackeys. Apparently the door doesn’t open up, because the next thing they hear is it being force from its jam with a heavy-booted heel.

Dirk purses his mouth. “Are there any other jinxes you’d like to lay on us?” he whispers testily. “Or are you done now?”

Todd looks as though he is about to say something extremely scathing indeed, and Dirk has a guilty feeling that it’s to do with all the jinxes that Dirk himself has laid on them over the course of their friendship. Before he can do so, however, they’re both distracted by the sound of wood splintering as another door is kicked open closer down the hall.

“Empty again.” Lackey One’s voice sounds dreadfully close now.

Todd and Dirk exchange a look and rush as one to the other side of the room, searching for an escape route. All they find is a pitch black ensuite and a window rigged with close-set iron bars.

“Classy,” Todd gripes under his breath.

Dirk dives for the closet. It’s been years, sure, but perhaps it’ll hold some salvation for him now.

The door next to them is beaten down.

The closet is shallow, too shallow for either one of them to fit into. Dirk doubts that even a coat hanger designed for a baby’s tuxedo would be able to hang inside it with the door shut. He begins to entertain wild ideas of cramming himself and Todd into the shower and hoping for the best.

There are footsteps directly outside their door now, and the hairs on the back of Dirk’s neck are so raised that his skin is itching. Todd looks at him with his huge, wild eyes, and Dirk feels a thrill of true fear hike its way up his throat.

A fist thuds on the door. “Open up! Routine inspection.”

Todd gestures frantically and silently at Dirk. Dirk flaps his hands back at him, because for one thing he’s panicking, and for another he’s not at all sure just what the fuck Todd expects him to do about this situation.

The fist hits the door again, rattling it in its flimsy hinges. “Hey?! Anyone home?”

Todd is mouthing something at him, gesturing again, and Dirk cannot work out what he’s trying to express other than, ‘do something, do something magic, do it right now.’

Dirks panics, flaps his hands, and proceeds in a moment of sheer blind desperation to make a bizarre and wildly inappropriate noise. It starts off something like the low, guttural cry of some mistreated bovine, ambles from ‘sad cow’ to ‘confused horse,’ and then ends in what can only be described as a loud moan.

Dirk claps both hands over his mouth. Todd, in all the times he’s stared at Dirk with an expression of ‘What The Absolute Fuck?’ has never before stared at him with so much emphasis on the ‘Absolute.’ Outside the door, Lackey One and Lackey Two are silent, as if processing this development.

A tense moment passes, one which is deeply uncomfortable for all parties. Then a more uncertain knock sounds on the door awkwardly.

“Um? Hello?”

Todd gestures at Dirk again, waving his hands as if begging him to do something, and this time the angry glint to his eye seems to suggest it had better be something more helpful than whatever the hell that was. Dirk gesticulates back at him rudely, hoping to articulate without words that it’s not always his job to get them out of scrapes even if it is sort of _literally_ his job to get them _into_ them, and that Todd ought to pull some bloody weight around here, and ugh, everyone’s a critic aren’t they, well why don’t you give it a go if you’re so clever?

Todd shoots him a blazing look, and they both start as the lackey outside knocks harder.

“This is a routine inspection,” he repeats, as if that will make the lie any less obvious. “We’re legally obliged to –”

Todd, who had opened his mouth halfway through this threat, seems to have planned to say something – perhaps something along the lines of: “occupado!” or “where’s your warrant?” What comes out instead is an empty, nonsense; “Uuh …” when Todd’s brain apparently fails to supply him with something sensible to say, which quickly devolves into a garbled, panicked noise that turns halfway through into a long groan. Dirk goggles at him, speechless, then in a moment of petty victory points at him with a silent but no less smug, “Hah!”

Todd shoves him in response and Dirk topples backwards onto the bed with a creak of the springs.

“Dude …”

They’re interrupted midway through another silent row via the medium of their own special brand of sign language as Lackey Two speaks. He sounds quieter now, almost unsure.

“I think, like … someone’s … You know. In there.”

“Well, yeah Mark, obviously someone’s _in there_ –”

“No, I mean like …”

Dirk and Todd both hold their breath, straining to hear.

“Like they’re … _you know_.” There’s a short silence that suggests a hand gesture of some kind is being made.

“So?” says Lackey One.

“So, I’m not interrupting that! That’s gross, dude!”

“What? Don’t be such a baby …”

“No, I got standards!”

“You don’t know that’s what’s going on in there! You got a dirty mind.”

“Dude, listen!”

As the lackeys continue to argue outside the door, Dirk looks up at Todd. He has a second to ask himself whether this is the stupidest or the most embarrassing escape card that the Universe has ever presented him with, and whether it wouldn’t be better to revert to the plan that involved hiding behind the shower curtain. Then he reflects that he’s known for a long time that he’ll do anything to keep Todd safe, and apparently ‘anything’ includes this. He seizes Todd by the arm and pulls him down onto the creaky bed with another loud approximation of a moan.

Todd lands half on top of him with a soft ‘oof’ and a total lack of grace. He pushes himself up onto his elbows with some difficulty, sinking into the lumpy mattress. He looks even redder than before even in the darkness of the hotel room.

“You hear that?” says Lackey Two outside.

“I don’t hear shit.”

Todd casts a look skyward as if cursing the heavens for putting him in this predicament, then reluctantly opens his mouth. The feigned moan comes out weakly, like a question. Dirk snorts. Todd glares at him like a resentful, wounded dog.

Trying not to laugh at Todd’s expression, Dirk kicks at the mattress to make the bedsprings squeak. He lets out another purposefully breathy moan and watches the tips of Todd’s ears turn pink.

There’s supposed to be a rhythm to this sort of thing, isn’t there? Dirk frowns slightly, trying to build up the noise by rocking exaggeratedly. He hasn’t exactly had enough experience to get it completely right …

“See! I’m telling you, they’re fucking!”

“Mark …”

“No, I’m not walking in on that shit! It sounds like two dudes, that’s so wrong!”

Dirk stops moving. Leaning over his chest, Todd is stiff, and on either side of Dirk’s head his hands are clenched into the sheets. It’s hard to work out his expression at first, but Dirk makes out the bitter anger in Todd’s shadowed face just in time to see it way to a slow, defiant grin.

Todd moans with a theatrical panache that would have made the hammiest of soap actors deeply envious. He pushes himself up on his toes and starts rocking into the springs over Dirk, starting up the rhythm again.

“Oh god,” he groans, feigning ecstasy to such a ludicrous degree that Dirk can hardly stop himself from sniggering. “Oh wow! Yeah, man! Don’t stop!”

Grinning, Dirk joins in, throwing in an accent that vacillates madly between Atlanta and New York. “I ain’t gonna stop!” he cries, “Oh, hold me closer, you – big, gay man!”

“Mark, get back here!” Over the gasping of Dirk, Todd, and the bedsprings, a minor fracas is barely audible outside. Mark seems to be attempting a hasty retreat. “What if it’s those guys we’re chasing?”

“What, we shoot at ‘em, they run upstairs and start sucking each other off?”

“We gotta check!”

“You check, I’m out, man! That’s some gay shit, I don’t wanna see that!”

“Oh my god, Mark, it’s 2019!”

“Whatever, you go look if you’re so hot for it!”

“I’m not hot for it!” Lackey One splutters. “I’m – It’s not like I …!”

Todd picks up the pace of creaking, rocking faster on his toes. He’s still half-leaning over Dirk, and still wearing that mischievous half-grin. The whole situation is patently ridiculous, and Dirk is barely suppressing laughter as he rocks with him, faking cries of sensual bliss.

“Oh! Oh god!”

“Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes!”

There’s a distant bang somewhere on the floor above; possibly a person who has been a third listener tuned into the Gently and Brotzman Sex Radio against their will and is now making their ire known with a broom handle.

“Dude, you hear that?”

“Next floor up?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

Dirk bids them farewell with a parting cry loud enough to be heard from Canada. “Oh, Todd! Yes, Todd!”

The footsteps recede outside and Dirk stops stifling his laughter, which bursts out in an ungainly snort. It takes him a few moments to realise Todd has gone still above him. His hands are gripping the sheets tightly again, but when Dirk looks up into his face he doesn’t see any anger there this time. He’s simply gazing down at Dirk with darkened eyes, the lines of his face tense.

It’s a strange sight to see, Todd’s eyes, usually so bright, reflecting the darkness in the room like that. There’s something unspeakably soft in them.

The air has shifted, and Dirk finds himself suddenly uncertain about what exactly it has shifted to. He says Todd’s name quietly, and Todd breathes out the smallest of sighs. It’s nothing like the purposefully silly caterwauling of a few minutes ago. It’s a sigh that flutters out between them, a fragile thing that brushes against Dirk’s lips.

Todd’s chest pushes into his with every breath, and the now quickening rise and fall of Dirk’s breathing seems to reply to it in kind, like the quiet bassline of a slow, thrumming song. Dirk can feel the weight of Todd down his torso to where their bodies separate, Todd’s hip just pressed against Dirk’s side.

“Again,” Todd murmurs.

Dirk’s stomach seems to be full of replicas of the soft, fluttering sigh that Todd released between them. They crowd him almost to the brink of unpleasantness but stop short of fear or discomfort. He feels safer than he’s ever felt in his life yet almost overwhelmed by that in itself; he’s dazed and sleepy and alert to every nerve ending all at once.

“Sorry?” Dirk manages, after a few halting breaths.

“Can you say my name like that again?”

Dirk knows his mouth is hanging open and that he probably looks very stupid. He feels stupid, struck dumb as he stares up at Todd.

“Please.” Todd’s hand finds his and intertwines their fingers together, slowly, gently.

At that Dirk sighs out of his own accord, “Todd.”

And Todd makes a noise, another soft, quiet noise that is nothing like the noises he was making earlier. Dirk doesn’t think he’s ever heard a noise like that from Todd before. It’s low, almost a groan but too tender, almost pained but not quite.

Dirk is intrigued, and the fluttering feelings in his stomach are as well, so he says Todd’s name again in the most hallowed way possible. It comes naturally.

He feels Todd’s feet shift and realises his toes are curling. Dirk marvels at the effect, almost confused that he’s responsible for it. He doesn’t know how saying a name can really have that much effect on a person – but Todd, as always, is determined to contradict him.

“Dirk.”

Dirk has never heard someone moan his name – not like that. The flutterings in his belly become an array of riotous sensation. The hyper-awareness he has had of Todd’s proximity for the last few minutes sharpens, becomes so acute that it’s almost dizzying. Suddenly Todd doesn’t feel nearly close enough, and Dirk finds himself pulling him closer by the fabric of his shirt.

Todd sighs into him, melts into him, says his name again. Dirk’s breath quickens again when Todd’s legs press into his. The mattress creaks underneath them.

Todd is dipping his head into Dirk’s shoulder, still murmuring his name. His free hand traces a path down Dirk’s side, sparking shivers into life beneath his clothes.

“Todd,” he says again, and this time it feels coaxed out of him, slow as warm honey.

They’re in a trance, spellbound into each other, and it’s not until Dirk feels Todd’s lips touch his neck that he becomes completely and one hundred percent sensible of where and who they are, and what they mean to each other, and what they’re doing.

Todd is kissing his neck. Todd, his best friend and ‘really-I-was-quite-sure-by-now-that-this-was-unrequited’ love of his life is kissing his neck. He, Dirk Gently, is being actually kissed by the man he is actually bonkers in love with.

He, Dirk Gently, rarely handles surprises like this with pose and dignity.

“Oh my _god_ ,” he says, and though he doesn’t say it the way he did while faking an orgasm earlier, he certainly doesn’t say the way he should right now. He says it in the abrasive, unromantic tone of someone who has just witnessed something surreal and incredulous, like a very large horse in a tiny upstairs bathroom.

Todd stops kissing his neck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers//
> 
> This fic does deal with an asexual character having sex and as such the sex scene is very emotions-focused, but I was mainly aiming for comedy with this fic rather than a detailed examination of the real life psychological mechanics of such an encounter. Some more (spoiler-ish) discussion of this in the notes at the end of the chapter, as well as a handy summary if you're sex-repulsed and want to skip the sex.

For a long moment Todd is merely still and stiff above him, his mouth hovering a few millimetres away from Dirk’s skin. Then, quietly, he swears.

“Shit.” He rolls off Dirk, lies heavily next to him and falls silent.

Dirk immediately wants to reach for him. Their arms are barely touching along their sides and he misses the languid warmth of Todd; Todd kissing him – _him_! Not Farah, not anyone else – him, Dirk Gently. How did that happen? How did they get here?

A dazed grin splits his face, and his fingers fly to touch the spot on his neck where the impression of Todd’s kiss lies. He can feel it tingling, as if Todd has made the skin there sparkle somehow. Dirk draws a breath to say what will probably be quite the run-on sentence, but Todd interrupts him.

“I’m sorry, Dirk. I shouldn’t have – god. I’m sorry.”

Dirk stops fingering the warm patch on his throat, his elation turning to wrong-footed confusion. Todd sounds choked up and vacant all at once, as if the being that is Todd has fled the premises but the body left behind is suffering terribly. It sticks at Dirk’s heart to hear him talk like that again – like one defeated.

Todd has turned his head to look at him, his eyes seeking some sort of response. “Are you okay? Did I – are you …?”

Dirk is struggling to process the last twenty minutes. His neck is still tingling, and his stomach is tight, and Todd is obviously upset, and those things are all more than a little distracting in various ways.

“I’m … I’m very confused,” Dirk says slowly.

Todd huffs out another sigh, but it doesn’t sound nearly so nice as before. He sounds angry. Why is he angry?

Todd seems to see the rush of concern in Dirk’s face, because he says hurriedly, “I’m not mad at you, I’m mad at me. God, I – I’m really stupid.”

Dirk wants to protest that Todd isn’t stupid, and that he’ll fight anyone who says otherwise, including and perhaps especially Todd himself. He doesn’t get the chance, because Todd barrels on.

“Of course you’re confused. That … probably came out of nowhere to you.”

“I mean …”

“And I’m sorry, I screwed up, I’m always screwing up – but I swear I’ve been trying so hard – Dirk,” Todd rolls onto his side, fixing him with an intense, pleading expression, “please believe me, okay? I’ve been trying to just – just keep it down and … but then you said my name like that and – Jesus, I’ve had …” he cuts himself off abruptly, looks pink and uncomfortable for a second, and then launches hastily into, “Not that it’s your fault! I’m not saying that – I mean …” Todd makes a frustrated noise and stops again.

“I’m sorry I just – jumped on you like that,” he continues more evenly after a very deep breath. “I’m … I’m sorry.”

A silence opens up between them. It makes Dirk feel as if Todd is both too far away and achingly close. Unable to respond to that litany of apologies, Dirk can only lie next to him in bewildered contemplation, trying to catch up with all the implications that have just sprung into being in the space between their bodies. It all seems to hint at something that cannot, _cannot_ possibly be true, and hope is making Dirk hesitant and cautious and plunging him into a state of almost out-of-body hyper-awareness.

His clothes itch on his skin, the hairs on his bare forearm brush against the worn linen sleeve of Todd’s shirt. He can hear Todd’s breaths, nervous and uneven. He can’t quite look Todd in the eye though, not with his own brain buzzing incessantly over everything; the sound of Todd sighing his name, (which is being played on a high definition surround-sound loop by his memory), over Todd’s anguished face, over the damp patch of skin just above Dirk’s clavicle. These are pieces he can’t fit together – he can’t work out why Todd is so upset when something so lovely has just happened. A more minor part of him is taking a moment to be impressed that today Todd is really outdoing him on the run-on sentences front.

“Dirk?” Todd is watching him with gathering anxiety. “Seriously. Say something, please.”

Dirk is trying to order his thoughts into something to say that won’t sound incredibly stupid, presumptuous, or arrogant. It’s difficult to order his thoughts though, when they usually exist in a state of almost perpetual akimbo and are currently in the enchanted disarray of a half-undressed maiden in a classical painting.

“Dirk, you’re scaring me.”

Todd’s hand lands on his chest, and Dirk feels his heart leap up in his ribcage as if magnetically drawn towards it. The sharp breath of air he draws in sounds like a squeak, but Todd has already snatched his hand back, stammering another apology.

“Shit, I’m sorry –”

“No –” Dirk’s voice comes out as another squeak, and he coughs. “No, wait –”

There’s another minor ruckus as Todd accidentally places his hand on Dirk’s thigh while trying to move it away, and Dirk makes an undignified strangled noise that sounds like someone putting six very incompatible words in a cement mixer. Todd swears and makes to scramble away from him entirely, but Dirk grabs him by the arm and holds him back.

“Wait, Todd –”

“Sorry, I can’t see properly – I swear I’m not trying to feel you up or –”

“I know –”

“Fuck, this hotel is shit, I’ll try to find the lights …”

“No, Todd –”

“I’m really sorry,” Todd says yet again, and Dirk realises he’s spiralling.

He resigns himself to sounding stupid, presumptuous, and/or arrogant. “Todd, are you attracted to me?”

Todd freezes again with only slightly less terror than he displayed in the stairwell when faced with armed gunmen. He eyes Dirk warily from across the bed, held in place by the grip on his arm.

“Yes,” he says stiffly, as if Dirk is prying the admittance from him with a crowbar.

Dirk’s entire chest cavity rushes with flutterings and all sorts of nonsense. He tries to play it cool. “O-oh. Oh. Yes. Okay.”

Todd’s shoulders are so tense that Dirk is beginning to fear they’ll never come down from being hunched level with his jawline.

He tries to joke, “Because that would explain the kissing.” It’s difficult to joke when one’s heart is doing jumping jacks, though, in the same way it’s difficult to keep one’s balance while running up a steep flight of stairs, so the attempt falls flat. Todd just looks faintly pained.

“Sorry, sorry,” Dirk says quickly. Then, “I just don’t see why that’s a problem?”

Todd looks at him in disbelief. “Because you – you’re … you!”

Dirk has to be a little miffed at that. “What, am I _that_ unfortunate to be attracted to? That’s not very nice, Todd, see if I let you kiss me after this –”

“No, I mean because you’re – hang on, what?”

“Because I’m what?”

“What did you say at the end there?”

“What were you about to say?”

“You tell me first.”

“Todd, I’ve been completely bloody lost for this entire conversation and it’s not my fault if you weren’t listening properly so I insist that you tell me first –”

“It’s because you’re asexual, Dirk!” Todd explodes.

Dirk suddenly comprehends. The clashing puzzle pieces click audibly into place. “ _Oh_.” He laughs. “Oh yeah, that.”

Todd looks practically thunderous. “What do you mean, ‘oh yeah, that?’ Like it’s an afterthought?”

Dirk isn’t sure what to say, so he shrugs and reverts to, “I mean …”

Todd takes another deep breath, apparently steadying his own sanity. “Dirk. I am … interested in you in ways that you won’t ever be interested in me.”

Dirk responds with his immediate thought, “Well, who’s to say never?”

“I …” Todd stares at him. “You! You did! When you came out to me – and to Farah and Tina …”

Dirk blinks. “When? I don’t remember coming out. Was there a party or something?” It occurs to him that he might have had his memory of it wiped somehow, because that’s the sort of bullshit he gets regularly drawn into, and it happens on such a frequent basis that he was bound to miss a little spike of weirdness in his life at some point. “Oh, rats.”

“No, no,” Todd is visibly trying to get him back on track. “You just _said_ it one day. Back when we were setting up the office, and Tina came over, and –”

“Oh, that!” Dirk smiles with relief, then says ponderingly, “Was it a coming out?” He hadn’t thought it counted as a coming out when he was either pretty sure or certain that every other person in the room at the time was also some particular flavour of queer. “I thought it was just an offhand reference to a well-known fact.”

“I didn’t know!”

“No, hold on, that was … _years_ ago …” Dirk thinks back on that afternoon with a frown. “Wait; is that why you shut yourself in the bathroom for an hour?”

“No!” Todd is turning red. “Yes. It doesn’t matter. You said you didn’t –”

“Well, it’s not as simple as that, is it?” says Dirk reasonably.

Todd, well past red and heading towards mauve, looks like he’s now the one struggling to keep up. “It’s not?”

“I’m not _just_ asexual, I’m also very, very gay.”

Todd stops progressing through the colour wheel of embarrassment. Dirk adds, “Another thing I thought was obvious. You knew that, surely?”

Todd, haltingly and with a slightly defensive edge that his eyes acquire whenever Dirk uses a certain tone of voice, says, “Yes. I mean, sort of? It’s not like I wanted to assume anything. And then I thought … with the whole asexual thing – you made it sound like you’d never …” Todd waits for Dirk to finish the sentence, seems to realise that he isn’t planning to, huffs and finishes it himself. “Like you’d never had sexual … feelings. For anyone.”

“Did I make it sound like that?” Dirk tries to remember. All he can really conjure up is something to with a game of Monopoly that turned into a game of Pay Your Rent Or Truth Or Dare, and Todd locking himself in the bathroom for so long that Tina joked he had accidentally fallen into the toilet and flushed himself out of the building.

“Dirk,” says Todd in the warning tone he often uses as a final red flag that Dirk had better get his dirty great foot out of his mouth sharpish.

Dirk tilts his head at him. “Todd.” He studies him, lying hardly a foot away on the other side of the bed; his shoulders still set tense, the wary look still lingering in his eyes. Dirk thinks about what to say very, very carefully, although now that he’s beginning to see exactly how their cards have fallen, his heart has begun to beat so fast that he can feel his own pulse in his throat. He tries to force himself to stay calm, and at least an approximation of collected, because he understands enough to suspect that Todd is not only not on the same page as him, but probably not in the same book, and might even be mistakenly wandering in an entirely different library altogether.

He readjusts himself, biting his lip. “Todd,” he says again, though he sees annoyance flicker in Todd’s eyes as he recognises it as preamble to something, “I don’t think you quite understand how the ‘whole asexual thing’ works.”

Todd looks defensive again. “No, I do. I Googled it after you said.”

Dirk resists the urge to outwardly sag in exasperation. “That explains a lot. Look, I mean – asexuality is a spectrum, and you don’t seem to understand what _my_ ‘asexual thing’ is. I mean, you couldn’t, because I didn’t explain.”

Todd scoffs, though Dirk can see a tired sort of affection pulling at the corner of his mouth at the same time. “Of course you didn’t, you never explain anything.” He reconsiders this almost instantly. “Except for the stuff you do explain way too much.”

“Yes, thank you,” says Dirk pointedly. “What I mean is; for me  it’s not as simple as ‘oh I’m totally sure I never want to date or sex anybody ever!’ I was just … not very interested in it for most of my life. I’ve … dabbled,” he adds, unsure how much to specify and already very conscious of Todd’s stare. “I’ve tried it enough to knock it, let’s put it like that. But as far as I can make out, I haven’t experienced sexual attraction a whole lot.” He slows down here, choosing his words as mindfully as he is physically capable. “The times I have experienced it … there’s been – well. What you could call an intense emotional attraction first.”

A strange cocktail of mixed emotions is brewing on Todd’s face. “You’ve been in love.”

Dirk fidgets slightly. “Yes.”

There’s a pause, and then Todd says falteringly, “I thought … you said I was your first friend.”

Dirk isn’t sure why Todd looks almost hurt, or why he hastens so much to correct him, but he does; “No, no – you are. Todd … you don’t have to be friends with someone to be in love with them. In my experience they don’t even have to really know you exist.” He tries to say this casually, and shake off the embarrassment of it by smiling through it.

Todd just looks even more shaken and stirred than before. Dirk continues quickly.

“The point is, asexuality can look and … feel very different for different people. For me, I don’t generally feel sexually attraction, so I’m not usually interested in sex. But there are about half a dozen _other_ kinds of attraction, and I’m pretty sure I feel all of those. For men, that is. That’s where the ‘very, very gay’ bit comes into the whole … situation.”

Todd’s expression is held, as if on pause, in a slack sort of half-frown. Dirk realises, not without fondness, that he may as well be speaking Ancient Latin.

“Todd,” he says softly, moving closer on the bed, noticing the way that Todd’s eyes widen slightly. “Do you understand what I’m saying? Yes, I’m not usually sexually attracted to anyone, but when feelings get involved, strong feelings, feelings like …”

Todd’s face is so pale and drawn in the dark, and Dirk feels like they’ve been looking at each for so long that he can no longer make full sense of Todd’s expression, as if it’s a painting that has lost all form after being dissected stroke by stroke.

Dirk reaches across the ever-decreasing space between them and slides his hand over Todd’s thigh. He feels the leg muscles tense underneath him.

“Dirk …” Todd is visibly holding himself still. His eyes are fixed on Dirk’s hand. “You don’t have to do this because, like … I know you care about me, and you want to stay friends, and I can just be your friend, Dirk, really –”

“Do you love me?”

Todd swallows. “I – um.”

Dirk skims up Todd’s leg, brushing the hem of his shirt up until his thumb touches bare skin at Todd’s hip. Todd sucks in a sharp breath.

“Yes,” he says, his voice cracked. “But I can keep it under control, you don’t have to –”

Dirk has had enough. Clearly coy subtlety isn’t going to do the job.

“Right,” he says firmly, and with a bit of clumsiness, he pushes Todd onto his back and rolls up onto him. Once he’s sitting upright, straddling Todd between his legs, he announces, “Let me make things perfectly straight.”

Todd, who is frozen underneath him like a deer who doesn’t know whether to run away from the headlights or towards them, chokes out, “What?”

“I mean – shit, wait, let’s get this straight – no,” Dirk pulls a face, “let me make things perfectly clear – oh, sod it.” He rolls his hips and grinds down into Todd, who gasps and clutches at Dirk to steady himself.

“I’m not doing this to placate you or avoid losing our friendship or whatever you’ve gotten into that thick, beautiful head of yours. You don’t have to apologise for ‘jumping’ on me because I _liked_ being jumped on. I don’t generally feel sexual attraction for people unless I’m in love with them, but I’m thoroughly in love with you and really quite astounded – bordering on concerned, actually – that you haven’t noticed me flirting blatantly with you for past two and half years, let alone the last minute. And what I said at the end of that sentence was a very half-hearted threat not to let you kiss me, which I now whole-heartedly withdraw if you would only _get on with it_.”

Todd looks stunned and breathless. “But …”

Dirk rolls his hips against him again, pressing them together until he’s sure that even Todd’s military-grade denial isn’t going to work against the very undeniable sign of Dirk’s arousal. “Todd. Does it _feel_ like I have any complaints?”

“… No,” Todd says after a moment, slightly strangled.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I guess I’ve …” Todd looks oddly lost. “I’ve been repressing this for a really long time.”

Dirk softens, feeling a rush of affection and sadness. He touches Todd’s cheek, and it’s both exhilarating and gut-wrenching the way Todd leans into it so hesitantly, the way that Todd’s hand reaches for Dirk’s knee as if he’s not entirely certain he’s allowed to touch it.

“You didn’t have to repress it,” Dirk tells him. In a small voice, he admits, “I thought you were the one who didn’t want me, actually.”

Todd’s gaze locks onto to his, fiercely earnest; his hand tightens on Dirk’s leg. “No, I do. God, I – that was the whole problem! I wanted you so much I didn’t know what to do about it and then Blackwing got you and –”

“Wait, Blackwing?” Dirk is taken aback. “You’ve … wanted me since _before_ Blackwing?” He finds it hard to hold back a surprised, shy smile.

Todd winces. “I don’t know. I’m …” he laughs uneasily, “I’m not the best at working this shit out.” He sobers. “Dirk. I’m sorry.”

Dirk, still smiling, shakes his head, “For what?”

“For making you think that. That I didn’t want you.” Now Todd is smiling too, a familiar smile that pulls at his mouth almost sheepishly – Dirk has always adored that one. “I do want you – so much.”

Dirk wonders if it’s actually possible to spontaneously combust from happiness, and if so whether this shitty hotel room has a fire blanket nearby for safety’s sake.

“I love you too,” he says without thinking much on it, because he knows that’s what Todd means, and because he’s too distracted by this point to worry about whether or not they’ve actually said that to each other yet.

There’s a sincerity in Todd’s eyes which is making something in Dirk’s stomach unfurl with heat, and Todd himself feels so steady, so wonderful between his legs. Todd is smiling as he picks up Dirk’s hand, kissing his knuckles and then his palm. Todd’s mouth is soft and warm and god-really-really-nice and Dirk’s brain is fizzing like a New Year’s Eve sparkler and – oh, Todd is saying something. Dirk wrenches enough of his attention away from the physicality of the situation to make sense of it.

“I promise,” Todd is saying into his palm, his voice quiet and ardent, “I won’t let you think I don’t want you. Not ever again, okay?”

The back of Dirk’s throat feels blocked and heavy, and as he stares down at Todd’s lips his thighs clench almost reflexively. Todd sighs when Dirk’s legs tighten around him, and Dirk is distracted all over again, with Todd’s mouth and Todd’s eyes and with trying to devise a sultry and not overtly desperate way to suggest that Todd start kissing his neck again, and so he almost misses the look of growing resolve in Todd’s features. As it is he’s taken by surprise when Todd flips him onto his back, rolling them both over until Todd is leaning over him again. They’re chest to chest once more, but Todd’s thigh is riding up firmly between Dirk’s legs.

“This is where we left off, right?”

Dirk supposes it’s a slightly cheesy line, but really doesn’t have it in him to care, not when Todd is looking at him like Dirk is the very music of the spheres. It’s slightly dorky, delivered with a lopsided almost-smile, and all the more ‘Todd’ for it – needless to say, Dirk finds it almost hideously romantic.

He slides his hands down Todd’s waist, searching for where his shirt ends. “Your leg wasn’t there.”

“Really? You sure?” asks Todd innocently.

Dirk grins as he finds the way under Todd’s shirt and slips his hands up onto the heat of his skin. “I’d remember if it was.”

Todd’s response is to press down into him, and Dirk groans as he feels Todd harden against his hip.

“Again,” Todd says softly.

Dirk is incredibly distracted now. “Wh …?” he slurs incoherently.

“Say my name again, and I’ll kiss your neck.”

Dirk tries not to melt instantly. “I – what makes you think I’ll go for that deal?”

“Dirk,” says Todd, shifting his leg up in reminder, “it’s a little late to play hard to get.”

“Damn,” Dirk retorts breathlessly, “I was hoping to get a proper kiss. Haggle for it, you know, that sort of –”

Todd presses his forehead to Dirk’s, and Dirk feels his brain absolutely shut down. The heat simmering in his stomach and between his legs is making his heart and throat ache, and Todd smells like the refined essence of all the things that make his mind cry out ‘ _home_ - _home_ - _home_!’

“What would you say qualifies as a proper kiss?” Todd asks him, his voice sweet.

“Mouth,” Dirk mumbles with his trademark loquaciousness.

Todd laughs, and in a fit of pique Dirk bucks against Todd’s leg, pushing his own leg up between Todd’s thighs. Todd swears and shudders against him. Relentless, Dirk arcs his hips again, pressing himself up against the hard length of Todd’s erection.

Todd seems to break. He tugs at Dirk’s tie with one hand, and Dirk has to help him loosen it and undo his top buttons. The moment Todd has torn his shirt open enough to expose half his collar bone he buries his face in it, pressing open-mouthed kisses into Dirk’s skin.

Dirk pulls him in as tightly close as possible, wishing with a fervour he knows he’ll never be able to adequately express that they could meld into one being. Todd begins to suck at his neck, and Dirk sighs out his name again and again, and then Todd starts to rock into him, grinding their interlocked hips together.

“Dirk,” Todd pants, but he’s cut off by a loud squeak from the bedsprings. They burst into laughter simultaneously, and Dirk feels their fused laughter vibrate through his chest and mix golden with the arousal building in the pit of his stomach.

Dirk is still laughing when Todd kisses him on the lips. His kiss is hard, fiercely earnest like he was when he told Dirk he wanted him. Dirk tries to match that sincerity, that fervour; he cups Todd’s jaw with both hands and falls eagerly into the kiss like a drop of rain returning to the ocean. He has a moment, more heated, more thrilling than the last, when he realises that he’s full-on snogging and grinding up against his best friend and ‘wow-okay-turns-out-this-is- _very_ -requited’ love of his life. Luckily this time he manages to refrain from saying anything stupid and derailing, though this is mainly because Todd’s tongue flicks against his upper lip and he loses all ability to do or think anything that doesn’t directly involve Todd’s mouth, Todd’s legs, and the weight of Todd’s groin against his hip.

They’re reaching the edges of Dirk’s prior experience now, but instinct tells him that announcing this would merely push Todd into another flurry of second-guessing, and anyway, it turns out he was right before, about there being a rhythm to these things. Though ‘right’ feels like an understatement and ‘rhythm’ is a hopelessly inadequate word; he wonders if this is how Todd feels when his fingers pluck at a guitar string and coax a melody into the air. Dirk is dimly aware, at the quickly fraying edges of his rational mind, that there’s an absurdity to their movements, but he’s too far stepped out of himself to care. The Dirk that is flustered, self-conscious, and anxious has been clouded out by the helpful light-headedness of his arousal, leaving him open to his own hunger for pressure, friction, the warm and wet and softly obscene way that Todd’s tongue enters his mouth.

Feeling someone else’s hands fumbling with his belt buckle is an alien sensation but somehow, in a way that Dirk had never been able to imagine for himself before, wonderfully nerve-wracking. His stomach twists in anticipation, and he clutches Todd closer, digging his nails into the skin of his back – and drawing back with a flush of embarrassment when Todd hisses in pain.

“No, it’s okay,” Todd soothes him, the hand that had been ready to dive into Dirk’s pants instead coming up to stroke his face, smooth back his hair. “I love you, it’s okay.”

Todd kisses his lips, then the line of his jaw. He returns to his earlier occupation, sucking the skin of Dirk’s neck into his mouth until it aches and sparks with almost-pain that sends jolts of shivering heat down the length of his body, and Dirk feels himself slip out of the embarrassment and back under the heady cloud of arousal. He pushes Todd’s hand back towards his belt.

Their second attempt is more successful, and soon Dirk’s head is spinning with even stranger sensations; the impression of Todd’s hard cock outlined against his thigh as Todd presses back to allow his hand between them, Todd’s fingers playing at the edge of Dirk’s waistband teasingly. Again Dirk is reminded that Todd is a musician, and remembers with a new swoop in his stomach the photograph he once saw of Todd playing at an electric keyboard.

His thoughts are cut short by Todd slipping into his open jeans and cupping him through his underwear. Dirk gasps something, maybe blasphemous, maybe a mangled swearword, maybe Todd’s name again – whatever it is, it makes Todd grin like the very devil. He looks so pleased with himself that Dirk just has to give back as good as he’s getting, and from there things quickly begin to escalate.

Buttons come undone; shoes, socks and shirts are discarded – Dirk’s flower-patterned jacket is thrown across the room to land in an unceremonious heap in the open shallow closet.

“Look at that,” Dirk quips between long kisses and fast, hard breaths, “you’ve – literally – deflowered me.”

Todd laughs brightly. He sounds delighted, almost bursting with joy, and somehow it’s not at all incongruous with the way they’re undressing each other in a half-frenzy of mixed eagerness and need; it’s echoed in Dirk’s giggles when they struggle to peel off his skinny jeans and Todd’s grin when he tosses Dirk’s tie over his shoulder. It’s only when they finally press together again that the combined familiarity and strangeness of their bodies – recognisable to each other, foreign and new in their nakedness – sends a spike of exhilaration into the centre of Dirk’s heart that turns him quiet.

It’s the mixing of the long-loved, long-adored, long-awaited, with all the things he never guessed or knew or wondered; the vulnerability of Todd’s soft belly, the hair between his legs, their cocks both damp with precum and the friction of them against each other almost unbearable. All these draw Dirk so far out of himself, so far away from any thought outside this moment, that when Todd begins to move against him he leaves himself behind entirely and becomes someone else instead; a being that is Dirk and not Dirk, Todd and not Todd, both together and all at once.

Dirk reaches between them and Todd inhales harshly, messily. He ruts into Dirk’s hand, and his desperation pulls at Dirk’s stomach, pulls at the electrified heat there as if it’s a tightly coiled spring being stretched back. It’s as though he can feel Todd’s building climax echoed in his own body. Todd thrusts harder into him and the ache grows, expanding up through his chest and into his throat, Dirk nearly comes – but he’s not ready, he wants more, he wants longer; he pulls Todd into a searing kiss that seems to stun him momentarily. The kiss quickly grows wild, too impassioned to retain a stilling effect, it spills back onto Dirk’s neck – which he notes through his haze that Todd is extremely fond of –

“You …” Dirk struggles to speak, “you s-seem to … rather like – my neck …”

Todd’s mouth curves into his skin. “I’ve always liked your neck, Dirk.”

And then the things that Todd’s tongue does draw noises from Dirk that are so loud he’s almost self-conscious again, until a rasping moan is received by Todd’s cock twitching against him, closely followed by Todd’s thighs squeezing around him, and his conscious thoughts lose all meaning beyond shapes and colours.

Dirk’s fingers, gentler now but no-less needy, raking across Todd’s back – he imagines the pink and white lines they leave behind. Todd spread against him, thrusting them together; Todd’s pale hands in his hair and his blue eyes turned three shades darker with want. They move together until they begin to lose momentum, begin to blur at their edges; one pulls the other closer and cries out, and the other gasps for air and is pulled along as if they are connected by a livewire that runs between their navels. He is still moving against him, falling into his own orgasm as his partner shivers and presses into him, already complete.

When Dirk comes back to himself, emerald green and ruby sparks are still bursting behind his eyes, which he didn’t realise were closed. He opens them to see Todd half-slumped on his chest, smiling up at him dopily. Dirk touches his ruffled hair, smiles at the crinkles in the corners of his eyes. They say nothing, because for once neither of them seems to have anything left for a run-on sentence.

 

* * *

 

Later, it’s a considerably more bedraggled looking Dirk Gently than the one who entered that pokes his head out of the downstairs backdoor. His neck is littered with pink and red marks and his jacket is missing, his shirt untucked and his belt jammed half-dangling out of his back pocket.

“All clear, love,” he announces, and tugs a profusely pink Todd – best friend and _boyfriend_ – around the corner and into the clear night air. Todd is wrapped in a bright floral jacket that Dirk thinks he wears immensely well, especially considering that it’s a size or so too big.

They make their way down the street hand in hand, and as they pass under a flickering street light Dirk catches the grin on Todd’s face, which he is doing a very bad job of suppressing.

Dirk gives him a side-long glance. “Well,” he says, “that quickly became a … situation.”

Todd looks at him sharply, faintly worried, “I thought you wanted –”

“I did!” Dirk assures him quickly, stopping. “I just wanted to – to check –”

Todd relaxes into a smirk. “What? That it’s the kind of ‘situation’ I enjoyed?”

Dirk blushes, even though it’s a little late for that. “Out of ten?”

Todd steps up to him and kisses him. “Can’t rate things when they’re holistically good.”

Dirk is left blinking and pink-cheeked when Todd continues down the pavement, hands in the pockets of Dirk’s jacket. The sight is a little jarring in the best possible way, and it takes him a moment to chase along behind.

“Okay, but really, was it an okay … _situation_?” he asks, because he’s nothing if not doggedly and perhaps stupidly persistent.

Todd turns around, walking backwards to grin at him. “Yeah.”

Dirk wilts slightly. “Just okay?”

Todd considers this. “The kind of okay I’d be okay with for the rest of my life,” he says, and the sincerity that Dirk is beginning to consider absolutely deadly is back in his eyes.

“Oh,” he says faintly.

As Dirk catches up properly and they fall back into step, Todd raises his eyebrows at him. “You gotta admit. We would get into this … situation.”

“What, the situation where we flee from the weekly hired goons into a badly aging knock-off of the Ritz, get shut in an empty room with no escape, and find ourselves compelled to make loud, gratuitous sex noises in order to put the aforementioned lackeys off the scent?”

Todd smiles. “No. The one where we admit we’ve always been crazy about each other, and I find out you’re not as totally out of my league as I thought. And then we have sex for the first time on a squeaky bed in a badly aging knock-off of the Ritz.”

“Oh,” says Dirk, grabbing Todd’s hand with a grin. “That one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although the Dirk of this fic doesn't use a specific label other than the generic spectrum of "ace/asexual," he can be fairly accurately described as either grey-ace or demisexual, that is, someone who does ID as ace but has had or does occasionally experience spates of sexual attraction. In my experience (my own firsthand experience and the experiences of ace friends) it's not exactly realistic to expect an ace person (particularly one who has only "dabbled" in sexual activity) to jump into a relationship with a sexual encounter, though I have heard of asexuals who engage in casual sex or sex regardless of their lack of sexual attraction for the sake of either their libidos or their partners and are perfectly happy that way. Originally this fic wasn't going to have a sex scene, but as I was writing it I began to realise that it did actually /need/ a sex scene, considering the conversation they were having and the specific feelings and urges they were discussing, and that it would probably make enough sense for suspension of disbelief seeing as in this fic both Dirk and Todd have had feelings for each other for the entirety of an intense friendship stretching over the span of 2016 to 2019.
> 
> All in all, this fic may or may not have been influenced by the chip on my shoulder about the attitude in certain fandom circles that asexual characters are less interesting/a pain to write because they won't engage in anything more heated than a cuddle. Author may or may not be on a crusade to create more fics that depict to varying degrees of seriousness the different ways that the asexuality spectrum can express itself in a relationship. My DGHDA fic plans document is a hellscape the likes of which you cannot imagine.
> 
> This is also my first time even attempting to write a sex scene so please be gentle with the baby (read: me).
> 
> Sex scene guide for the sex repulsed:
> 
> Sexy times proper kick off after Todd's line: "I won't let you think I don't want you. Not ever again, okay?" End after the page break. Fluffy, giggly turning emotionally transcendent non-penetrative sex ensues with gusto. Everyone has a great time. Todd really likes kissing Dirk's neck. Dirk has a floral-jacket that exists for the purpose of me making a 'de-flowered' joke.


End file.
